Wet, Wetter, Wettest!

Oh my goodness! How much rain can there be?? We have been under water in the Veggie Patch for about two weeks and every time the water starts to drain away down the lane it blinkin' well rains again!

There is a little trench around the area where the poor, soggy, red onions used to be that is about 9 inches deep and it has had water in it constantly. As a consequence of this the broad beans and peas have drowned and are all yellow and dead, but we did manage to get the onions up and they are drying in the greenhouse.

All 31 tomato plants are still alive, but they are not ripening properly - I think it's because there has been very little sun on them and they are not happy.

Runners are growing again, now about 5' high and 'running' to catch up! Bless 'em! The most reliable and tasty of all the veg we have tried to produce!

My Crown Prince Squash (it's like a gunmetal blue pumpkin) are doing really, really well! Because they are planted on the poo-pile (50:50 pig and horse!) they usually suffer from lack of water, but this wet, wet year has done them a power of good and there is one particular fruit that is about 15-18" in diameter! They are not grey yet, but ripen to a beautiful colour, apparently. I'm told they make great soup and so I'm looking forward to that - soupaholic that I am!

Sorry about the quality of the picture but my batteries were low and autofocus was a little slower than usual - but as you can see, Harvey "The Harvester" has decided to make the poufe his own - regardless of The Bloke and his size 13's!

Still have a hole in the bottom of the swimming pool - thank goodness! The water is leaving the pool as quickly as it is being poured in by the rain! I don't think I will be using it while the temperature remains below 20 degrees Celsius and the humidity is about 80%! All I have to do to cool down is stand still . . . oh, Joy!

I found a caterpiller on the strawberries today and spent a good 15 minutes trying to take a photo of his furry little bod. This is the best of the lot! Ah, me ...!

The Daughter came home for the three-and-a-half days that it took to do and dry the NINE loads of washing that she brought with her! We even got some dry outside during a brief respite from the deluge. It was lovely to see her - but it would have been nice to have to get to the beach for a couple of hours and paddle to keep cool!

And so, apart from publishing a huge "Thank you" to The Son for the dosh to buy an auto-opener for the greenhouse window for my birthday, that's all my news for now, so Toodle-pip!

Midsummer's Day - Longest Day of The Year!

Beloved of Shakespeare and Druids, not to mention Skippy, who is down in Wiltshire at Stonehenge as we speak, today is, indeed Midsummer's day. This is the day that the longest hours of daylight happen and the shortest night. Think about this; it means the nights are now drawing in again! Oh, joy! And all we've had is rain - there's no justice.

In fact the last day or two have been lovely, although the nights have been wet and nasty, but it's nice to see the sunshine, and get the washing dry.

AAaaanyway, here are 2 pictures of the sharp end of Winston. It is with this weapon that he (and his sisters, similarly equipped) have destroyed a large portion of our pasture, and have had a whale of a time doing it.

These two beauties are Lilly and Violet; note how careful they are not to touch the wire? That's the electric fence. Oh, the squeals when one of them touches it - and the running about in panic and the flapping of ears! Funniest thing on the patch!

Quick picture of Fluffy, the Silkie Hen, who is, of course, broody again. Sun's out; Fluffy goes to the nestbox and sneakily steals other chicken's eggs and takes them for her own family. Fortunately, this time she IS in the nest box and so we won't have any little fluffy surprises like we had last year! She gets turfed out morning and evening, so that she remembers to have a drink and some food. It's a really strange thing, broodiness! They go into a kind of trance and have no idea of the passage of time - apparently they have been known to die of thirst!

Daisy.

This is the kind of damage they can do in your pasture when having a piggin' good time! Fortunately it won't take much time to recover once the porcine ploughs have gone to the Great Spirit In The Freezer - probably just in time to receive a lot of grazers!

Ah, well, if you're not offering food, we'll go back in the house out of this hot sun! Don't you just love those tails!??

Lilly, The Pink (and Black)!

Violet The Violent; loves nothing better than 'killing' a paper sack or a cardboard box! She shakes it like a dog with a rat - I wonder what she thinks when she's doing it??

Nice photo of Bluebell, which is not only her name, but her breed. She lays enormous eggs and gets really, really fierce when she is broody. I have to put a bucket over her head to collect the eggs from under her! Scary!

I think we may have a mouse problem in the feed shed. All I wanted to do was sweep out the old crumbs from the pig nuts - and this is what I found! We have taken all the food out and will set traps.

And, finally, This is a picture of The Bloke. It is a small figurine they have produced to publicise his new film "Shrek The Third" which is where he was when he didn't answer his phone a few months ago. Don't believe that his feet are this small in real life, the camera does, indeed, lie.

My Birthday Update!

Well, hello again! Since I have a new cordless keyboard and an unrelated new cordless optical mouse (no expense spared in this house!) that have seperate receivers it was hitherto impossible for me to use either of those with the card reader I use to upload photos to here. Skippy came to the rescue and provided a 4-way hub which means you can, once more, view the goings on in full Technicolour©! Thank you, again, Skip!

We now have babies on this tomato plant! It resides on the back, South facing wall of the house (between the loo and the bathroom windows) where it never really gets chilled because the wall acts like a large storage radiator at this time of the year. This means there is a lot of watering activity the second the rain stops - because no matter how much it rains, hanging baskets gain no benefit, apparently.

This is the current state of the "Black" toms in the greenhouse. They were a present from a friend and I was terrified they were going to die - as these things tend to happen, don't they? However, they are growing away beautifully and have plenty of potential fruit. As with all the other toms, I am being very diligent about pinching-out the side shoots. I didn't do this the last time I grew them and ended up with a beautiful hedge with no flowers or fruit!

I've been looking around the "grounds" (LOL!) at the various plants growing away and then looked in the garage and found this pile of seeds. "I'm sure we haven't planted this many things!" I thought to myself. Then I went thru the pile and we have! There are Butternut and Crown Prince Squash, Early and Maincrop peas, cauliflower, sweetcorn, swede, savoy cabbage, garlic, courgettes, runner beans, purple french beans, sweet peppers,

chilli, leeks, broad beans, lettuce,

cucumber, radishes, blinkin' tomatoes by the hundred, raspberries, strawberries, beetroot, spinach, chard, carrots and salsify. So quite a few!

That's all for now, then. I is orf to enjoy what's left of my Birthday (on this dreary Sunday Afternoon) and to do some research on the Welsummer Hens I shall be getting as a Birthday Prezzie from The Bloke!

Chin chin!

Flamin' June!

OK, so it's Midsummer's Day in a week. What happened? Why are we under a foot of water? Where's the Sunshine? Everyone has had lovely weather in the rest of the country - in Beautiful Suffolk it's been throwing it down.

Despite this, things are growing like mad. We have a total of 32 tomato plants - Cherry, Hanging Cherry, Ordinary Red Ones, Beefsteak, Yellow and 'Black'. There are little green "marbles" on the hanging basket ones already! There's only the two of us at home now the kids are off and gone. I don't really like tomatoes. So, what the dickens am I going to do with them all? All recipe suggestions gratefully received!

We are cropping (a term we agriculturalists use for "picking"!!) Broad Beans. Another one of the veg we are growing that I don't really like. The Bloke is absolutely enamoured and would eat them every day. This is probably a good thing, as the marigolds are keeping the blackfly off and it would appear we are going to have a bumper crop.

We have been eating courgettes for about a week. Very nice they are, too, either steamed as a vegetable with the roast or in the frittata (I can't spell that!) that I do with blue cheese. The Bloke likes it in a pack-up (local name for a packed lunch) when he goes off huntin', shootin' or fishin' with his pals.

The Runner Beans are apparently recovering from being put out too early and turning yellow. The general concensus is that the frost got 'em. Anyway, I planted some more a couple of weeks ago and they are almost as big as the first ones now, so next year I will delay planting them by at least a month - and save some room in the greenhouse for other, more tender, things.

We have eaten the first of the Early Potatoes, too. This variety "Kestrel" is resistant to slug attack - but apparently not Rust! So we are ploughing thru them at a rate of knots so that it doesn't spread to the others. The tops are being burned on the bonfire that is used to control the number of cardboard boxes we get the piggy-veg in. This is a brilliant way of getting rid of stuff because it burns so hot and clean!

Harvey is now just another one of the family. He is desperate to taste the polecats and loves to run at the gate and make the chickens take flight (well, in as much as a chicken can!). He's got his insurance certificate thru and will be going for "the unkindest cut of all" shortly. We have to get this done before Rosie comes in to season again; not a pleasant mental image there - he's three times her size!

I can't post any photos this time coz I have a new keyboard and mouse that use the USB slot on my computer. This means I can only use two out of the three gizmos that I need to download the pix. I'll get a hub and will post them later.

Hope the weather is being kinder wherever you are!